Chart Of The Day

Cillizza suggests that Congress pay attention to some startling new data:

[T]here’s a new number in a national Pew poll that should give incumbents who assume that people hating Congress will exempt them in the next election some pause. That number? Thirty eight percent — as in 38 percent of people who say they do not want to see their own Member of Congress re-elected in 2014. While that number is far lower than the 74 percent who say they would like to see most Members of Congress lose, it’s still the highest percentage wanting to get rid of their own member in more than two decades of Pew polling.

That stat has to be — or at least should be — concerning to incumbents in both parties particularly given, as Pew notes, that at this time in the 2010 election — when 58 incumbents lost — just 29 percent of respondents said they wanted to replace their own Member of Congress. Things might return to “normal” — hate Congress, love your Member — well before the 2014 midterms. But, we are currently in the midst of historically poor ratings for Congress, meaning that depending on “how things have always been” could be a major miscalculation.

Just heard breaking news: Washington Redskins dropping Washington from their name because it is embarrassing.